


Lost in This

by corellianrogue



Series: A Step to the Left of Reality [6]
Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Gen, Intervention, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 06:03:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corellianrogue/pseuds/corellianrogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaejoong learns the hard way that sometimes things can be too good to be true. The aftermath of his knee problems and everything that might have come with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in This

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 2011 hc_bingo challenge on LJ.

“You need to stop taking them eventually.”  
  
Jaejoong gasped, fumbling the bottle of pills he’d just opened. He managed to keep the bottle mostly upright, but had to clench his fists against going after the few loose pills that scattered themselves across the floor. He just didn’t want to waste them. That was the only reason.  
  
He turned to face Changmin. “My knee hurts, and you know they’re not going to take that as an excuse.” He’d be out there dancing right alongside them whether he was up for it or not. Which was as good a reason as any, if he did say so himself.  
  
Changmin looked dubious. “Hyung...”  
  
Fine. Jaejoong’s eyes hardened and he turned away. “Don’t you have to get dressed?”  
  
Nothing for a long minute, then he heard Changmin sigh and close the door behind him as he left. He sagged against the table, letting it take the weight off his mostly-healed knee. Those confrontations were becoming more and more common, and not just with Changmin, but none of the others knew how much he still needed his painkillers, no matter what the doctors said about weaning himself off of them.  
  
They were wrong.  
  
~  
  
A week later and Junsu looked like he’d been roped into something that couldn’t be more against his nature, and maybe he had been. Yoochun and Yunho both watched him like starving vultures whenever he so much as twitched. Maybe they’d recruited the other two when he wasn’t paying attention.  
  
“Hyung?”  
  
Right. Junsu. “What?”  
  
“You just... seem strange lately. Is everything okay?”  
  
As if Junsu had any right to call anything or anybody else strange. Ha. “I’m fine.”  
  
He didn’t even need to look to know how Junsu’s face would go tense and still as he tried to process every possible nuance of that sentence, but he did anyway. “But your leg-”  
  
“I’m FINE. I said I’m fine, so I’m fine. Go tell 2U to stop acting like nosy old women, too.”  
  
Junsu looked too startled to do anything but as he was told. Teach them to send someone else to do their dirty work for them. He downed three of the pills, more for the hazy feeling to make the anger go away than for any actual pain. He still needed them.  
  
He hid the bottle before he left the room. He couldn’t trust any of them.  
  
~  
  
He got off stage and went immediately for his bag. He’d taken to hiding a few of the pills in other things where they weren’t likely to look just in case. His knee really did hurt. Or he thought it did. Sometimes he wasn’t sure anymore.  
  
He looked up from grabbing his water bottle and caught Yoochun watching him in the mirror, something about his expression making Jaejoong look away first. He needed his pills. Couldn’t they all see that? If he messed his knee up again...  
  
He swallowed the pills quickly, before he could think of anything else. Let Yoochun watch if he wanted. Except he looked back up, and Yoochun was already gone.  
  
~  
  
He couldn’t find them. He couldn’t find the bottle. He’d hidden it in the same place for the last two weeks. He knew it was there. It had to be there. But it wasn’t there.  
  
He tore his room apart, looking for the bottle. He’d just gotten it refilled the day before. He’d used up all the pills stored in his bag and hidden in the office at the studio, so he had to find the bottle. He was starting to really panic when a movement at the door caught his attention. Yoochun. They’d hardly spoken in more than a month despite sharing the room. In fact, now that he thought about it, Yoochun had been sleeping with the others more often than not. “Yoochun?”  
  
He looked down, not watching Jaejoong anymore, and Jaejoong’s stomach felt like a lead weight. “You don’t need them, Jaejoong.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You don’t need them.” Yoochun wouldn’t look at him. He looked everywhere around the destroyed room but at Jaejoong. “You don’t need them, so we got rid of them.”  
  
Obviously, he couldn’t have heard that. They wouldn’t. They knew he needed them. He did need them. They were wrong and stupid and “How could you?!”  
  
Yoochun flinched but stood his ground. “You don’t.”  
  
Jaejoong threw the nearest thing at hand at Yoochun’s head. One of his phones. It missed, hitting the wall with an ominous crack, but at least Yoochun was looking at him now. Part of him was terrified at how he was reacting to this, but he didn’t care. “How could you?! How fucking could you?! What do you know? You don’t know how it feels! You don’t... You don’t know anything...”  
  
He swayed, the anger draining everything else out of him, and suddenly Yoochun was there, holding him tightly no matter how much Jaejoong fought the hug. He could never remember fighting a hug from Yoochun before. “You don’t, Joongie. You’re stronger than that, and you know it. They’re just like the crutches, except these will actually hurt you. Please.”  
  
Jaejoong fought, trying to get Yoochun to understand how much he needed them, how wrong he was, how wrong they all were, but eventually the words just stopped coming. They were replaced by loud tears and Yoochun’s quiet reassurances that things would be okay, he’d get past this, they all would.  
  
When he finally came back to himself, he found himself on the floor, hemmed in by more arms than Yoochun had any right having. How long since he’d let any of them this close, let alone all of them at once? He’d forgotten how it felt. He’d forgotten how much he needed this.  
  
He still needed the pills, and he still hated them a bit for taking the pills away, for not understanding, but he needed the four of them, too. Sitting there, he wondered if maybe they didn’t love him enough to make up for it. Just until he remembered.


End file.
